Jesus

FBC is a great church and there are some great people here. But honestly we aren’t that impressive. We would love to have a an awesome impact on your life and hope to minister to and with you from this point forward… but in the ways that really matter? Meet us or not and it may not matter so much.

Meet Jesus for real, though, and you will be impressed. This is someone who you really want to get to know.

Napoleon Bonaparte is quoted as once saying “I know men, and Jesus Christ was no mere man.”

Jesus of Nazareth was a man who walked all over Isreal during the time of the Roman rule about 2000 years ago. Not too many people argue that he was… but there is a lot of conversation about what was he? A rabbi? A prophet? A messiah? A carpenter? The savior of the world?

And why was he here? Why did he come?

Where do we start? A lot of times the beginning is not the best place to start, but this time, we will start there anyway…

Before there was anything to be before, there was God. God was One and yet existed as Three Persons. That may seem confusing, but it also makes sense. A loving and sacrificial God needs to be able to love and sacrifice as a part of His very nature! What better way to have that chance than to be Three and One.

When God made it all, it was good.

Sadly, though, sometime after God breathed life into Adam, Adam made the decision to disobey God (not that we would have done any better). Adam’s defiance, and ours, have separated us from experiencing the Holy and Awesome goodness that God created us to find in Him.

As individuals, we no longer have a “right” relationship with Him… as Paul notes in his letter to the Ephesians, we “were dead in transgressions and sins.” (Ephesians 2:1)

“Sadly” for God, He had created us out of an out-flowing of love, and now we were separating ourselves from Him! Maybe that seems odd, to say “sadly”, but He created us to love us and so we could enjoy and glorify Him and we were running away.

Although it was sad for Him, it was devastating for us.

Separated from a right relationship with our Creator, our purpose-giver, we are truly lost – and most of us feel it inside. Even the most prideful of us, when alone and quiet, recognize the lonely echo of eternity in our hearts.

God, still crazy about us, designed a plan by which we can be restored to that right relationship to Him. Sin must be paid for, but who can pay for the sins of a fallen race?

That’s where Jesus comes in.

Human beings are unable to create Holiness. We can’t fix our own problems.

No amount of effort gets us any closer to being morally perfect. But who has moral perfection?

Fortunately, God does.

It only makes sense then, that if perfection or holiness is what we need, we better go to God to get it. God came Himself, in the Person of Jesus Christ, to pay the price for our sins and to offer that right relationship with our Creator… so that as His children, we can truly be home where we belong.

It is an important note that this offer is a gift, not a “deal” or a “loan” or anything else – a free gift! Anyone can accept it without jumping through any hoops.

That letter to the church in Ephesus goes on to say

“But God, being rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our transgressions, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up with Him, and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the ages to come He might show the surpassing riches of His grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Eph 2:4-9, NASU)

Many of us have never been introduced to this God, described as “rich in mercy” and having “grace in kindness” and “great love.”

Too many have only known of a legalistic “rules to live by” brutal, constantly irritated and impatient God who we have wanted to avoid. Grace and Mercy are the truth about Him, though.

He is Great and Mighty and Holy and Right, and He loves you more than you can possibly imagine! His love is a raging fury for us! He desperately wants us to come back to Him. So, the free gift of Jesus Christ is there for you. Take it. Accept it.

Call on His Name. (Romans 10:13). He came all this way, took every step of self-sacrifice to us… and now offers His Hand.